Google Docs is designed for collaboration from the ground up. You've always been able to share documents with individuals and groups, and today we're making it even easier to share and control access to your files across your organization.

The new features include the ability to:

Easily apply sharing settings to a doc – Google Docs can now be identified as:

Private: Private docs are accessible only to people or groups you’ve explicitly invited to the file. Anyone trying to access the file will have to sign in to verify that they have access to the file.

People at your organization with the link: Docs set to this option are accessible to anyone inside the domain who knows the URL of the file. If you also select the ‘Allow anyone to edit’ option, anyone with the URL will be able to view and edit your file. This option allows you to easily copy and paste the file’s link into chat, email and calendar invites.

People at your organization can find and access: Docs set to this option will be indexed by Google Docs search and may be opened by anyone in your organization.

If your Google Apps administrator allows sharing outside of your organization, you will also be able to make a file Public on the web or available to Anyone with the link (no sign in required). Administrators can also control the default visibility setting from the control panel.

Quickly see who has access to your docs – The visibility options for your docs now appear next to every file in your Google Docs list and next to the title within any doc. You can see the full list of editors and viewers by clicking on the visibility information next to the doc title or on the ‘Share’ button.

Reset a file’s URL with one click – For files that can be accessed by anyone with the link, you can reset the file’s URL at anytime, which helps you better control who has access to your files.

Gavin Haslam, Google Apps technical lead at Rentokil Initial, says, "The new sharing settings make it easier to share information across our organization, and will save us huge amounts of time when rolled out across our 35,000 users on Google Apps."

We hope you enjoy these new features, which are rolling out over the coming week. Stay tuned for more updates soon! To learn more about the new Docs sharing settings and many more recent launches on Google Apps, check out our on-demand webinar.